The Rule of the Tudors 1485 - 1603

The reformers sought to replace a religion of seeing as believing a religion of the Word. Tyndale had
once promised a learned Catholic that 'If God spare my life . . . I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the scripture than thou dost.' In exile, suffering countless setbacks, he had
almost completed his translations of both Old and New Testaments when he was betrayed. Yet his
martyrdom in Antwerp in October 1536 came only shortly before the first official English Bible was
published, mostly in his translation, which marked English religion and the English language thereafter. In 1538 the same Injunctions which outlawed the veneration of relics, ordered an English Bible to be placed in every church. At first the Bible lay gathering dust, largely unread, and were no
compensation for the irrecoverable loss of the painted images and shrines. The people were forcibly
deprived not only of numinous artefacts, symbolic of a world unseen, but also of objects of beauty in lives of privation. Religious art was often their only art. Yet even the loss of such treasures was not
as traumatic as the shattering of the beliefs they had symbolized. The desecration threatened the end
of mediation, propitiation and spiritual solace, in this world and beyond, and very many were left bewildered and bereft. No one watching the destruction, powerless to prevent it, could be oblivious
to doctrinal change. The evangelicals had brought scripture to the people, yet their own downfall was
prefigured in their triumph. The reforms in religion were threatened by their devisive consequences.
Zealots demanding further reformation moved to commit reckless acts of iconoclasm and to challenge the most sacred mysteries of the Catholic and evangelical faiths alike. Tyndale had warned John Frith,
unavailingly but presciently, 'Of the presence of Christ's body in the sacrament, meddle as little as you
can; that there appear no division among us.' But there were divisions among the evangelicals, as well
as an abyss between them and the Catholics, who grew more resolute in opposition as they saw the extremist tendency in reform. Dissension appeared in every community where the 'new' faith had penetrated, and reports of the trouble reached Cromwell daily from every part of the country; reports which he tried to hide from the King. Reform could continue no longer once the King knew that ideas more radical than he could countenance, particularly concerning the Mass, were spreading within
his Church. At the end of 1538 a repressive proclomation was issued in which the King's hand was
visible - not least in the implacability of its penalties. Free discussion of the 'Holy and Blessed Sacrament', and its mysteries by the unlearned was punishable by death and forfeiture. Clergy who
married, contrary to their vow, would be deprived. A new wave of presecution began. Henry himself,
dressed in the white of theological purity, tried John Lambert, who had been denounced by his fellow
reformers, men who held more moderate views than he did upon the nature of Christ's presence in the Eucharist, and who feared that Lambert's radicalism would endanger the whole evangelical cause. Lambert was condemned, and burnt, for beliefs about the Mass which were very close to those which
Cranmer would hold himself within a few years. Reform was at a crossroads. Cromwell had determinedly sustained the evangelicals, but he could not protect them, or himself, for much longer.
Henry was alarmed by the spread of heresy and sacrilege at home, and by the divisions which the new
faith had generated. When he learnt early in 1539 that Calais had become an enclave of 'gospellers'
through Cromwell and Cranmer's patronage, his fears were confirmed. Cromwell's conservative opponents, the Duke of Norfolk and Bishop Gardiner, long excluded from court, returned determined to destroy their evangelical enemies and reverse the Reformation.